Here's a thought: you tell it your budget, who you want to send stuff to, some categories they're likely to be interested in, and what dates/holidays. It nags you x days beforehand to pick a gift from the ones it's selected. If you don't it sends the highest ranked one within your budget. It would be cool if xmas/birthday cards could be semiautomated too.
That's probably overdoing it (especially the semi-automatic sending of gifts) but I genuinely think that a "help you select gifts" application would be a nice idea.
The way I see it working is that you start off by telling it basic data about your recipient (e.g. 55 year old male), and it makes suggestions one at a time, which you can rank from "not bad" to "terrible" depending on whether you think they'd like it. Every ten suggestions it gives you a list of "the best so far", and hopefully you'll eventually be sent off to Amazon or whatever to buy one.
This is actually a really good idea. It's not too impersonal, it's useful to a lot of people (much better than just browsing the shops looking for inspiration), it has a clear revenue stream, and people could be prompted to use it several times a year.
